Rise of the Great Pumpkin
by NursingStudent
Summary: When North catches the flu, it's up to the Guardians to save Christmas with the Great Pumpkin's help. Jack still hasn't explained how he became Jack Frost and the others are keeping a secret from him. Is anyone sincere? The Great Pumpkin doesn't think so, but sometimes we have to trust others before they will trust us in return.
1. Forty Acres and a Mule

_Author's note: I wanted to have the Great Pumpkin be real in a story, so I wrote this. Please note that this story, although original, is based on_ Rise of the Guardians _by Dreamworks Animation and William Joyce and also based on Charles Schultz's "Peanuts" weekly and daily newspaper comics. My story is a fanfiction, receives no monetary reward, and is purely for your enjoyment. Thanks to my sister for beta-reading._

 **Rise of the Great Pumpkin: Chapter One: Forty Acres and a Mule**

 **Posted Nov. 11, 2015 by Nursing Student**

* * *

Linus Van Pelt walked down the street bundled in an oversized coat, the biting words of his sister, Lucy, still ringing in his ears after their disagreement over the Christmas tree. Linus wanted to put all the old family ornaments he'd brought with them on the tree, but Lucy just wanted stylish identical bulbs. Linus turned to look at the department store across the road. Lights lined the roof's edge and ribbons wound around the bollards. He couldn't see inside, the windows were canvased with posters reminding parents of everything they should buy to avoid being on their children's "naughty lists." Most people were hurrying to and from the store, but a few others were hanging back apathetically. "Everyone just wants what they can get." Linus sighed. He wished he could see good ol' Charlie Brown, but that was impossible, Linus and Lucy had traveled half-way across the country to visit his cousins Jamie and Sophie for Christmas. He clung to his security blanket. Would his cousins be as mean as Lucy? He wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

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Jack Frost tried to make a point of serving ALL the children of the world, but he still needed sleep like everyone else. It was his usual habit to stay after hours at Burgess' Goodwill store to get a snooze unnoticed on a comfortable sofa or an old mattress; but today he overslept. Back when he was still invisible to the children, this was not a problem. Now, his dreams were often interrupted by children bonking him on the head with a pillow. So, it was not surprising when Jamie Bennett found Jack Frost and subsequently booked Jack's whole day by begging for stories about American history.

"Jack! Jack!" Jamie whispered as loudly as he dared to avoid attracting the attention of the clerk and simultaneously bonking Jack on the head with a pillow. "I need you to help me with my history project!"

"I'm the Guardian of _fun_ , what would I know about history?" Jack yawned.

"Well, you lived through it didn't you?"

"Is that any reason to get me up? I spent all last night sending snowstorms to Sweden, Inner Mongolia, and Jamaica."

"Jamaica?"

"Hey! I was tired!"

In the end Jack couldn't resist answering Jamie's questions and, trying to explain everything from butter churns to "forty acres and a mule," the two of them hiked through the forest as Jack showed Jamie how to tell the difference between various animal tracks. Eventually, Jamie's cell phone chirped; it was nearly supper time.

"Well, I guess I'd better walk you home." Jack turned back to Burgess.

"You're right." Jamie sighed, crossing his arms with his feet planted on the leaf covered forest floor.

"Aren't you coming?" Jack said from ten paces ahead.

"Yeah." Jamie stood still, grinning with sudden inspiration.

"Well… what are you waiting for? Christmas?" Jack leaned against a tree.

But Jamie didn't want to _walk_ home at all; who would want to do that when Jack Frost could give you a lift? Soon Jack found his elbow in a tight grip as Jamie whooped with joy to be gliding over the trees and Jack soared like Jamie's prancing pony through the sky, his other hand gripping his shepherd's crook as if it was a sail. It was a good thing Bunny wasn't there to complain about Jack's trend of bringing children along on daredevil stunts. They reached Jamie's window and Jamie climbed into the room while Jack hovered outside.

"Jack?"

Jack turned to look at him.

"When I grow up, I want to be a Guardian too."

Jack smiled.

"I mean it. What do you do? Do you just ask in a letter to Santa or what? Send a rocket to the Man in the Moon?"

Jack gulped and fell onto the window seat, Jamie seemed serious. "It's not that simple."

"Do you have to pass some sort of test? Is it like the SAT?"

"Essay T? What's an Essay T? Are there essays A, B, and C, too?"

"STOP that; it's not silly." Jamie frowned, exams were a very serious thing at his school. Hence Jamie knowing about the SAT when he was only in the fourth grade. "Now, how can I become a Guardian?"

"Okay, well, first of all…uh…you don't get to _decide_ to be a Guardian, and before that you have to be a mythical person that actually exists." Jack rubbed his chin.

"Hey, can I be Spider-man?"

"I just said you don't get to choose to be a Guardian." This kid sometimes drove Jack up the wall.

"Well, how did you become Jack Frost?"

"Uh." Jack _knew_ the conversation was going to lead there.

"You didn't bribe the Man in the Moon, did you?"

"No." Jack turned to leave out of the window and saw a couple of Tooth's fairies beating their wings in a low hum that kept changing pitch like a doorbell. They were holding a letter between them. Jack took the rice paper into his grasp and broke the square seal as Jamie squirmed to look over his shoulder.

 _"Dear Jack Frost,_

 _"You are cordially invited to the talent competition of the decade with the other Guardians. Please preplan your entry. All competitors must complete their work within five minutes and the works will be judged by the Tooth Fairy for the winning prize of the Leprechaun's pot of gold. The competition will begin at 9:00a.m. local time on Christmas Eve at the Tooth Palace._

 _"Sincerely,_

 _"The Tooth Fairy"_

"Well, I'd better get going." Jack stood, pocketing the letter.

"But Christmas Eve is tomorrow."

"Tooth lives on the other side of the world. It's almost morning there. Bye!" And he leaped out the window. It was perfect timing, he thought as he let his shepherd's crook steal all the wind out of the sky so he could get to the Tooth Palace quickly. He couldn't tell Jamie, or the other Guardians, how he'd become the legendary Jack Frost; that the Man in the Moon had chosen him after he'd drowned while saving his sister, quickening him and making him a legend who could control ice and snow. Jack liked who he was, the bringer of joy and snow-days to children. Saying, "Hey, I drowned three-hundred years ago." didn't fit the job description, and they might start to feel like he didn't belong with the rest of the Guardians. No, secrets were best kept to oneself.

He breathed in the clean mountain air as he zipped past Tibetan flags and heard the birdlike sounds of bamboo flutes from a close building. Following the curve of the Himalayan Mountains, he soon came to Tooth's Palace, which gleamed as if it had just been polished with a thousand tubes of toothpaste.

Jack skidded on the polished palace landing, icing the floor in his fear, which hastened his trajectory to the brazen door. He slammed into it, causing a resounding bang that could be heard echoing inside the palace. Tooth opened the door seconds after the sound.

The Easter Bunny grinned, "Why didn't we think of knocking like that?"

Sandy and Bunny stood by the doorposts, but North was nowhere to be seen.

"North probably hopped out with it being so close to Christmas." Bunny said, hopping on his spot of the golden landing where they were to hold the contest.

"Well, we can't wait forever." Tooth sighed, her feather plume drooping and then stiffening as she spoke. "These are the rules. Number one: complete your artwork in five minutes. Number two: Don't touch anyone else's work. Okay? Now begin."

Jack took his place. He began to form large sparkling teeth out of ice with a layer of snow just under the surface to give that pearly white finish with the ice forming the structural support and outer covering. Soon he was stacking them like a house of cards, the molars were the bricks. Giant tusks formed the front doors. Clear incisors made up the windows.

Bunny knew his entry had to be impressive. He'd even brought supplies. He took his eggs that gleamed ivory and etched tiny crowns and canines on them and even glued on egg teeth that had fallen off of newly hatched ducklings. There was only so much one could do in five minutes.

But Sandman had the most fun of all. He simply made a colorful sand painting of Jack Frost. It had captured his face as he hollered to kids during a snowball fight, but the angle and shadowing focused on one thing: Jack's big smile with all those shiny white teeth. The grains of sand gleamed and the painting probably looked better (at least to the fan-girl crowd) than Jack himself.

Tooth called "Time's up!" and Jack had to avoid becoming jealous of Sandman as Tooth flitted over to Sandy first.

Bunny's cheeks billowed and he wanted to melt Jack's house of teeth. "Too bad we couldn't get North to judge." He grumbled. Tooth was too enamored with Jack to be the judge.

Then she walked over to Jack's entry, and Bunny noticed she spent more time looking at Jack than she did his Casa de Dientes.

At last she walked over to Bunny and her tiny fingers lifted the miniature work of art. She practically cooed over his inclusion of duckling egg teeth, and appreciated the fine etchings that stood up under her sharp birdlike eyesight.

"You won, Bunny."

"I… did?" His ears twisted forward.

"Of course, this is the most original and intricate tribute to dental health I have seen in a long time." Tooth spun in the air, wings buzzing like an electric toothbrush.

Soon Bunny's paws held the pot of gold, Sandman had set off sand firecrackers, and Jack was trying to pull away from five of Tooth's fairies. Then the Sandman pointed towards ribbons of light trailing through the sky.

"The Northern Lights!" The others gasped.

* * *

 _... Stay tuned for future chapters! And please read and review; it will help me write better..._


	2. It's the Great Pumpkin!

_Author's note: Please note that this story, although original, is based on_ Rise of the Guardians _by Dreamworks Animation and William Joyce and also based on Charles Schultz's "Peanuts" weekly and daily newspaper comics. My story is a fanfiction, receives no monetary reward, and is purely for your enjoyment. Thanks to my sister for beta-reading. Please enjoy!  
_

 _In the last chapter, Tooth, Jack, Sandy, and Bunny were interrupted by the Northern Lights..._

* * *

 **Rise of the Great Pumpkin: Chapter Two: It's the Great Pumpkin!**

 **Posted Nov. 18, 2015 by Nursing Student**

* * *

Soon, they reached the North Pole in Sandman's surprisingly speedy hot air balloon. The Yeti opened the weighty doors for them and they stepped inside. It was hard for them to understand Phil as he spoke in Yeti, "北男很病! 他不会说ho-ho-ho!" and dramatically motioned to North's workroom which could only be reached through a minefield of unorganized gift-boxes.

"Did you say, 'Ho, ho, ho?'" Asked Tooth.

Phil nodded.

"Where's North?" Bunnymund asked.

Phil pretended to sneeze. Then shook his paw while saying, "Ho, ho, ho."

"North's sick!" Jack gasped.

"That, mate," Bunny said, "Is no laughing matter."

Sandy stomped his foot and shook his head.

"You mean," asked Tooth, "That North can't even say, 'Ho, ho, ho?'"

Phil bobbed his head and roared.

The Guardians stood gloomily gazing at the floor. Immortals rarely got sick. Sandy waved them to the Globe room, and they dawdled behind him.

"Well," said Tooth, "We're going to have to make a plan."

"Yeah, how're we going to get toys to a billion name-specific kids?" Bunny grumbled, holding a present labeled in North's firm handwriting. "Manny's waned too fast, so we can't ask him."

"Maybe the fairies can help." Jack said, a dozen fairies chirruping agreement by his ear.

"You're away with the pixies, Frostbite."* Bunny fell into a plush chair with his head in his paws. "The fairies can't carry large presents."

Phil padded into the room, and went past a device like a telescope, but instead of using the telescope (it had a sign on it saying "broken"), he walked over to North's "belief globe" control panel, and took out a giant cowrie shell that the yeti could hardly encircle in his arms.

Phil grunted as he set it down in the center of the room, the others could clearly see North's Cyrillic-font handwriting staining the side: "Man in Moon's Tidal Cowrie Shell for Emergencies." Before anyone could speak, Phil grabbed North's mallet and smashed the shell into dusty pieces. A shiny mist rose out of the container, quickly setting into a roundish shape that became clearer and clearer as a white light gleamed up from the broken cowrie shell fragments. As the Guardians stared at it, it grew ridges and large leaves. Laughing, triangular eyes glowed with a toothy smile underlying them. It was the Great Pumpkin.

"NO!" Bunny yelled, jumping twenty feet in the air. "No! He gave up on Halloween years ago!"

"Because no one ever saw him?" Jack asked.

"No," moaned Tooth, "Because he said no one was sincere… No one! How could the Man in the Moon have chosen him?"

"If he'd done his job, Pitch wouldn't have had the chance to gain so much support on Halloween, and Pitch would've never grown strong enough to take over the world." Bunny was clenching his paws.

Sandman nodded, an image of Pitch and the Great Pumpkin arm wrestling appeared over his head – Pitch was winning.

"Maybe he just needs a chance!" Jack glided over to the hologram.

"Kid, he's not like you. You were young, that's why you could still change." Bunny said.

"Young? I'm over three-hundred years old! I'm in North's soccer club, The White Hair Company. We play the Red-Headed League every month!"

"Bunny means that nothing's ever happened to make you grow up." Explained Tooth, flying towards Jack, she'd brightened up after hearing Jack was in a soccer club; now she would _have_ to schedule that day off.

"Like what?"

"Like your best-friend dying or losing your entire planet." Bunny said quietly.

"Oh." Jack replied, suddenly appearing to become very interested in the Atlantic Ocean on North's globe.

"But I don't think that's what happened to the Great Pumpkin…" Tooth chattered. "I think he just lost faith in humanity – that anyone was sincere."

Sandy motioned that they should shove the Great Pumpkin in a sack and get going.

"Oh, no!" Jack said, "No sacks; I know how that feels."

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Phil showed them a GPS in North's sleigh that would find anyone you needed to give a present to in the whole world. After wrapping up a quick present for the Great Pumpkin, the Sandman returned, and the sleigh dashed down the icy track. The sound of metal and hoofs screeched in their ears. Sandy launched a snow globe ahead of them. The sleigh jumped through as if coming out of an elevator. They emerged in a barren winter field in Kansas.

"Gang, I don't see 'im." Bunny leaped out of the sleigh, glad to find solid ground.

Sandy created a picture of a pumpkin growing out of the ground as if in time-lapse photography.

"Huh?" Everyone puzzled.

"Oh, yes, I remember, the Great Pumpkin supposedly rises out of the most sincere pumpkin patch on Halloween night, to give presents to all the good children of the world." Tooth recited. "I think I read it in a newspaper somewhere."

Bunny jumped to the center of the field, ignoring the cold wind that hit him and the hard, dried pumpkin stems he'd landed upon. He gave two smart taps with his hind foot. The ground opened up as he thrust his ears forward, intently listening for sounds. Soon, an orange and green shape catapulted out of the tunnel and into the air. Sandy threw a sand-mattress underneath him as he plunged back down, vines waving in the air.

The pumpkin climbed out of the mattress and stared at them. His melon was about three feet in diameter. A golden light gleamed from his eyes and mouth. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"I'm Tooth, the Tooth Fairy. This is the Eater Bunny, Sandman, and Jack Frost. We really could use your help."

"I don't believe a word of it." The Great Pumpkin said, stiffening.

"But the Man in the Moon told us-" Began Jack.

"No one ever needs my help!" The Great Pumpkin said and turned to wander back down underneath his field.

"Please, _NORTH_ needs your help, mate!" Bunny begged.

"A likely story. He's always thought I stole _his_ idea! Even though Manny suggested it."

"North's sick. We need you to help save Christmas." Jack said, absent-mindedly waving his shepherd's crook in the pumpkin's face.

"Why? To give presents to kids that _don't deserve them!_ Children just want presents, they don't care about anything else. They don't care about how much the gifts cost, or that it's better to give than to receive. No. No one is sincere; they just want presents that are better than the next guy's." He rose up to look Jack in the eye. "Do you know why I stopped, Jack? Because no one appreciated my gifts… No one even _bothered_ to leave pumpkins in the field for me. They would always sell the pumpkins before Halloween. There are no sincere pumpkin patches anywhere!"

Jack looked down, the Great Pumpkin was right. But he was also wrong. "Look, Great Pumpkin, I know sort of what it's like… No kids even saw me for _three-hundred years._ But that doesn't mean you can give up on them. Sometimes people need to be given something before they know how to give to others."

"Manny's giving you a chance." Tooth echoed, smiling.

"Take it from me," Bunny said, "You can't live in a burrow for eternity."

The others turned. Behind their heads, where only the Great Pumpkin could see its ongoing construction, Sandy had fashioned a great Christmas tree that rose to be the tallest thing in that dry Kansas field. Each needle edge glinted from the golden sand and from every branch there dangled an ornament that resembled smiling children from everywhere in the world. Then from under the tree, the Sandman picked up a single golden package and handed it to the Great Pumpkin, bowing his head.

The Great Pumpkin undid the ribbon and the package dissolved in his hands to leave a stack of letters and a leaf-full of candy corn.

He read the first one.

 _"_ _Deer Grate Pumpkin,_

 _"_ _How are yu? My sister and evryone tells me yu are fake. But I believe in yu. Do yu have a dog?_

 _"_ _Sincerely,_

 _"_ _Linus VanPelt_

 _"_ _P.S. Don't feel bad if yu don't have a dog, I don't either."_

The leafy vines ran to the next one.

 _"_ _Dear Great Pumpkin,_

 _"_ _I hope you had a good year. Did you get cold in the winter or do you have a house like Santa? I am fine. I live near a pumpkin patch._

 _I have tried to be a very good boy._

 _"_ _Sincere,_

 _"_ _Linus VanPelt_

 _"_ _P.S. If you are real, please write back. My sister won't stop laughing at me."_

There were more letters, all from Linus except the last one, which was from Charlie Brown to North. The postmen had always delivered the former letters to North by mistake.

He looked more closely at the last one.

 _"_ _Dear Santa Claus,_

 _"_ _I am not asking you to give me presents this year. I'd like you to give my presents to my best friend, Linus VanPelt. You see, he believes the Great Pumpkin exists and he waits for him all night every Halloween in the pumpkin patch and never gets any candy or treats. Everyone laughs at him. So, this year, could you please give him my Christmas presents? He has been very good all year._

 _"_ _Thank you,_

 _"_ _Charlie Brown"_

"Are these letters real?" The Great Pumpkin looked up, Sandy nodded.

* * *

 _*"Away with the pixies." is apparently Australian for "You're dreaming."_

 _Love this story? Write a comment; I could use the encouragement._

 _Note: misspelled words in the letters were intentional._


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